Well, as many of you may have found out by now, regardless of your thoughts of MMA, former WWE champion, Brock Lesnar did the unthinkable this weekend and upset “Captain America”, Randy Cotoure for the UFC Heavyweight championship. Well, in the wake of this, both WWE and TNA Wrestling have offered their congratulations to Brock Lesnar in different fashions.

Firstly, here is TNA’s message:

Everyone at TNA Wrestling would like to congratulate Brock Lesnar, who defeated Randy Couture in Las Vegas to become the new UFC World Champion.

Lesnar made the successful transition from pro wrestling to mixed martial arts, ultimately winning the top prize in the UFC at Saturday’s Pay-Per-View event.

So, this is a message of congratulations and they make a point to mention he went from wrestling to MMA, nothing wrong there. TNA understand that MMA is here and isn’t going away, they also aren’t trying to compete with it, they are embracing it if anything. Now, WWE on the other hand, not so much. Here is the message they posted on their website:

In a stunning upset, Brock Lesnar became the first man to capture both the WWE Championship and the UFC Heavyweight Championship when he defeated UFC fan favorite Randy “The Natural” Couture on Saturday night in Sin City.

Lesnar, dubbed “The Next Big Thing” upon his arrival in WWE, earned the moniker and his first WWE Championship in 2002 after besting The Rock at SummerSlam. Thanks in large part to the backing of the WWE Universe, the former college wrestling phenomenon went on to regain the title twice, both times against Kurt Angle, once at WrestleMania in 2003 and then six months later on SmackDown.

For Lesnar, the road to UFC gold proved surprisingly short. Within roughly six months, the former WWE Superstar climbed to the top of the ultimate fighting heap, capping his ascent with the upset victory over Couture.

Critics have noted that many of the fights on the UFC pay-per-view ended in the first round, leaving UFC producers scrambling to fill the three-hour event with content. The dearth of hearty competition left many viewers to watch less prestigious under-card fights and only served to bolster claims that UFC pay-per-view events can often be a “crap shoot” in regards to filling the full three hours.

For his part, Lesnar took the encouragment of the WWE Universe and the hard lessons forged during his fiery time at WWE and showed UFC and the world why he is not only a man of mettle but also a former three-time WWE Champion.

Lets take a look at one specific point made in this comment. Take away all of their “we are great” bullshit. That is just WWE trying to say they made Brock when in actual fact, they put him on television, he still did all the hard work himself. So, this is the passage I was refering to:

Critics have noted that many of the fights on the UFC pay-per-view ended in the first round, leaving UFC producers scrambling to fill the three-hour event with content. The dearth of hearty competition left many viewers to watch less prestigious under-card fights and only served to bolster claims that UFC pay-per-view events can often be a “crap shoot” in regards to filling the full three hours.

So, WWE are saying that because only 1 of the fights (Jorge Gurgel’s decision loss to Aaron Riley) actually went the distance. To me, I want to know what critics they are talking about? You mean wrestling marks who don’t understand MMA? Speaking from personal experience (as a wrestling and MMA fan), I prefer to see MMA fights decided by either a knockout or a submission. After all, a fight that goes to the judges isn’t a result, its an opinion. We can’t have every fight being as exciting as a John Cena match (sarcasm), where someone gets the crap beat out of them for 10 minutes then in a flurry of punches followed by a weak submission wins a match looking as if they never got hit once.

Another thing I would like to point out, WWE seem to make out that they are untouchable in this, well, here is a small fact for WWE, and this quote comes from JR’s blog:

The WWE grossed over $2M Monday night with sold out events in both London and Manchester. That’s “serious money.” Tuesday night’s taping is also a sell out in Manchester with many more massive ticket sales grosses to come as the WWE continues a hugely successful European tour.

So, 2 shows (one a television taping in an 18,000 arena and the other a house show in the O2 Arena which is a 20,000 seater) they made half of what UFC did for 1 show, with less than 15,000 people in the building. This was confirmed here:

During the post-UFC 91 press conference, UFC President Dana White confirmed that the attendance for UFC 91 was 14,272 for a total combined gate of $4.8 million.

So, WWE taking shots at the UFC is pretty redundant, MMA is here to stay, and for some reason WWE seems intent on trying to one up them, but lets put this into prespective, WWE Wrestlemania 24 in the Citrus Bowl (with 74,635 people in attendance) got a gate of $5.85m, this is their biggest show of the year, UFC had a fight card that got $1m shy of that in an arena a quarter of the size. Thats because people are willing to pay for UFC shows, and I am seriously hoping that UFC 91 gets over 1.1 million buys (which would also smash WWE’s record).

WWE is really embarrassing themselves with these shots, and here is hoping Dana White has a response, that would be interesting.